Fuel Loaded Into Iranian Nuclear Power Plant

Iran's sole atomic energy plant on Saturday began receiving nuclear fuel, a major step in bringing the long-delayed facility online, Reuters reported."Despite all the pressures, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the startup of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities," said Iranian atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi. The United States and other nations suspect Tehran's nuclear program is aimed at developing a weapons capability, a charge vehemently denied in Iran

A total of 163 fuel assemblies are to be installed within the facility's reactor core in the next two weeks, the Associated Press reported. Electricity production would begin two months later. “Not a single professional in the world has any questions about the chance that the Bushehr nuclear power plant could be used for nonpeaceful purposes,” said Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian state-run atomic energy firm Rosatom, who was on hand for the fueling.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog on Saturday said it "regularly inspects the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran," AFP reported. "The agency is taking the appropriate verification measures in line with its established safeguards procedures," which are intended to prevent civilian atomic sites from supporting proliferation, said IAEA spokesman Ayhan Evrensel.

Meanwhile, Tehran also rolled out what was said to be its first drone bomber, Reuters reported. The Karrar system can fly as far as 620 miles at speeds reaching 560 mph, according to state television. It reportedly could carry four cruise missiles, or a load-out of either two 250-pound bombs or a single 500-pound bomb. "If there is an ignorant person or an egoist or a tyrant who just wanted to make an aggression then our Defense Ministry should reach a point where it could cut off the hand of the aggressor before it decided to make an aggression," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at the unveiling ceremony. "We should reach a point when Iran would serve as a defense umbrella for all freedom-loving nations in the face of world aggressors," he added. "We don't want to attack anywhere, Iran will never decide to attack anywhere, but our revolution cannot sit idle in the face of tyranny, we can't remain indifferent."

Iran regularly warns Israel and the United States against attacking its nuclear facilities. Such a strike would be "suicidal," Ahmadinejad said.

Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi also said Friday the nation had conducted a test launch of a new ground-to-ground missile, AFP reported. He did not offer details on when the test had occurred or how far the Qiam missile could fly. "The missile has new technical aspects and has a unique tactical capacity," Vahidi said of the "new class" weapon. "Since the surface-to-surface missile has no wings, it has [a] lot of tactical power, which also reduces the chances of it being intercepted," he added.

Issue specialists are generally skeptical of Iran's claims regarding its military capabilities, the Los Angeles Times reported. The nation's annual military spending barely exceeds $10 billion, an amount dwarfed by the U.S. defense budget.

Tehran, though, could use friendly militant groups to carry out strikes aimed at causing a significant number of deaths and injuries and at pulling the United States into an unwanted armed engagement.

Our Regional Postgraduate Course is a top level education offering which has been in place for the last seven years. It is the only in the world delivered in Spanish/ Portuguese. UNODA and OPANAL have recognized the Course as a relevant education program.

A United Nations report Thursday said that Iran has reduced its stockpiles of sensitive uranium by 75% as part of a deal with six world powers seeking assurances of the peaceful nature of the country’s nuclear program, Reuters news agency reported.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Iran had diluted half of its reserves of uranium with 20% enrichment.

Under the terms of the agreement, the other half of the country’s sensitive uranium reserves were to be converted to oxide. Reuters said that the U.N. agency reported that this process was halfway completed.

A terminated U.S. Army facility worker faces charges for holding what was thought to be a deadly form of uranium, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.

Police detained 44-year-old Joseph Gibeau on Saturday after allegedly finding radioactive substances inside several lead-shielded containers at his home while responding to a domestic call, the newspaper reported on Tuesday. Two containers reportedly held a substance tentatively identified by authorities as uranium sulfate, a potentially lethal chemical.

The leader of the global monitoring group that is helping oversee the eradication of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal said Monday President Bashar al-Assad’s government has no more margin for delays if it is to meet the June deadline for destruction of its arsenal.

Ahmet Üzümcü, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said the removal of the chemicals had fallen behind a revised schedule that called for the delivery process to be completed by April 27.

North Korea reportedly has deployed a mobile rocket launcher to its east coast in a possible sign that a threatened missile test is imminent.

A transporter-erector-launcher was detected moving toward the North's coast, an anonymous senior South Korean government official told the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper for a Tuesday report.

The mobile launcher was earlier fielded at the North's "central front," the official said. "North Korea made similar moves before the launch of its short-range FROG rockets and KN-09 ballistic missiles in late February and early March."

A high-level U.N. official today opened a four-day conference on lethal autonomous weapons encouraging delegates to take bold action to assure that the ultimate decision to take life remain under human control.

A study by security experts of a British university said that a Chinese businessman, who has been accused of supplying prohibited technology to Iran, may have begun manufacturing a key component of guidance systems for ballistic missiles, seriously threatening international peace and security.

The operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accidentally directed 200 tons of highly radioactive water to a building within the plant site that was not supposed to receive the contaminated water, the Japan Daily Press reported Thursday.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) told the Japan Daily Press that Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) ordered the company to monitor for leakage even though TEPCO assured that the facility was watertight.

TEPCO reported that the highly contaminated water, which is used for cooling the disabled reactors, had been mistakenly routed to a group of buildings that house the central waste processing facilities for the plant.

A Japanese columnist today said Washington may soon force Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to accept traditional safeguards on its nuclear materials unless it backs down from its confrontational stance with neighboring countries.

Norihiro Kato, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and literary professor at Waseda University, said in an Op-Ed piece in the newspaper that if Abe “continues on his confrontational agenda, his government may lose Washington’s support.”

Zimbabwe hasn’t signed an agreement allowing uranium exports to Iran, Deputy Mining Minister Gift Chimanikire said, after a media report the country entered into a deal to export the material used to build nuclear weapons.

The state of New Mexico in the southwestern region of the United States has given the Los Alamos National Laboratory a deadline for securing 57 nuclear-waste barrels that were linked to a radiation leak in February, according to news reports.

New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said the nuclear-waste drums may pose an “imminent” and “substantial” danger to health or the environment, NBC News reported. He said the laboratory had until Wednesday to propose how to secure the barrels to prevent further leaks.

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